


The devil is real, and he's breathing down my neck

by Multifandom_damnation



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Accidental Bonding, BAMF Billy Hargrove, Billy Hargrove & Eleven | Jane Hopper Friendship, Character Death Fix, Developing Friendships, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Memory Related, Post-Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-24
Updated: 2019-07-24
Packaged: 2020-07-17 18:34:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19960681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Multifandom_damnation/pseuds/Multifandom_damnation
Summary: It all started with Billy witnessing El snapping a strange man's arm with nothing but a scowl, continued with an unlikely friendship that nobody could have ever expected, and ended with him ramming the front bumper of his Comaro into an approaching demo-dog yet somehow managing to be the hero they never knew they needed.





	The devil is real, and he's breathing down my neck

**Author's Note:**

> God, El is really hard to write, this is why I didn't include any dialogue for her in any of my other Stranger Things fics. I had this idea and I really liked the title and even though it turned out shit I just really needed to write it IM SORRY SUE ME

It all went to shit when Billy Hargrove found out.  
  
He shouldn't have even been there, really. It was all just a great big coincidence. How were they supposed to know that he would be walking down the street, hands in his pockets and a cigarette dangling from his lips at the same moment someone would take a swing at Dustin and El broke his wrist with a rather pointed scowl? Maybe it was the screaming that caught Billy's attention, startled him out of his thoughts and forcing him to look up at where the sound had come from, only to see the bunch of kids his little sister hung out with and a man screaming as he clutched at a broken wrist. As he watched, El raised her hand despite her friend's protests and blood exploded from the asshole's nose to splatter against his shirt and he ran away screaming.   
  
It was Lucas who caught sight of him first, standing on the street corner with wide eyes, the cigarette between his teeth falling to the ground where the rainwater put it out. "Uh, guys" he whispered. "I think we've got a problem."  
  
El didn't even bother to wipe the blood from her upper lip as she turned to a very confused Billy with her hands raised. "Go," she said. "I'll hold him off."  
  
"Uh, no offence," Dustin said, pushing her arms back down to her sides. "But I think we've got much bigger problems than him attacking us."  
  
Then they ran away, and Billy was left alone in the street with his blood pounding in his ears, confusion muddling up his brain and one cigarette short.  
  
Hopper and Steve were already waiting for them when they burst through the door, panting. It was Mike who finally managed to draw enough breath to speak. "Billy knows," he gasped. "He saw us, and he saw El break someone's wrist."  
  
Steve looked like he was about to have an aneurysm. "You didn't see him?"  
  
Scuffing her shoes on the floor, El shook her head. "No," she murmured. "One minute he wasn't, then he was."  
  
Standing so forcefully that his chair hit the ground, Hopper gripped the edges of the table to keep himself from falling. Pale-faced, he said. "And you're sure it was Billy? The prick from your school who always gets into fights?"  
  
Everyone looked at Max, who was looking down at the ground. "It was Billy," she said quietly.  
  
"Yeah," Lucas scoffed. "No other moron would go walking through the streets in winter with only a shirt that was missing most of its buttons."  
  
"Right," Hopper blew a strained breath out through his lips. "Well, we've got to go then, before he finds us. We'll probably make it to the cabin before he tells anyone, and I'll just tell your parents that I'm hosting a last-minute game night."  
  
But Steve was already shaking his head. "No-can-do Chief. Billy's been to the cabin. That was where he beat the crap out of me and Max stabbed him in the neck with a needle and pushed the plunger."  
  
The room was silent as everyone tried to figure out what to do, but it was Max who broke it. "You go to the cabin, I'll stay here. I'll go home and make sure Billy doesn't tell anyone or follow you."  
  
Lucas looked like he wanted to protest but Dustin stomped hard on his foot and spoke instead. "How are you going to get home? Steve can't take you because he has to take us to the cabin."  
  
Max lifted her chin in determination. "I'll call Billy to pick me up. He will, you know. He always comes when I call him, even if we're fighting or something happened at home. I'll walk down to the park and wait there so he doesn't know where Steve lives. Someone can come to pick me up tomorrow."  
  
Reluctantly, everyone was forced to agree with her plan and one by one, they all exited the house and piled into Steve and Hopper's cars, and Max watched their headlights disappear into the distance before she started walking.   
  
She only had to wait about 10 minutes before she heard the familiar roar of Billy's Camaro and the headlights blinded her for a minute as it served around the corner. She shut the door behind her just as it started to rain.  
  
They drove in silence for a few minutes, Max looking out her window at the passing shapes in the darkness, Billy's fingers clenching the steering wheel so tight his knuckles were turning white. "So," he said eventually when they pulled into their neighbourhood. "Where were you tonight?"  
  
"Out with some friends," Max felt her whole body coiling like a spring about to snap. "From school."  
  
"Right," Billy didn't seem convinced and Max couldn't blame him considering he saw the whole thing. "And these kids from school... anyone new?"  
  
"Not that I know of."  
  
Humming, Billy pulled into the driveway and let the car sit idle for a moment while Max struggled with her seatbelt. "What about the girl who snapped the boy's wrist?"  
  
Max didn't answer because she was out the door and in the house before Billy had finished speaking, the door slamming on his words.  
  
For the rest of the night, Max did her best to avoid him, which was easier than she'd thought it would be, considering Billy stayed in his room the whole time. At dinner, he didn't even come to the table, and Max had to leave a plate of food for him outside his bedroom door. She had to check the garage to make sure his car was still there and that he hadn't snuck out through his window to secretly visit the cabin.   
  
The next day, Max waited at her window until Steve's car pulled into the drive and she didn't even wait to hear the horn beeping before she was out of her bedroom with her hand on the front doorknob. Her mother cornered her before she could leave. "Where are you going, sweety?"  
  
"To play D&D with the others," she said the pre-prepared lie with ease.   
  
"I thought you went there last night?"  
  
Max shrugged as Steve honked the horn again. "It's at a super intense point, the others are begging me to be there. I wouldn't want to miss it."  
  
"Alright," her mother smiled kindly. "Have a good time."  
  
As quickly as she could, Max opened up the door and sprinted down the drive and leapt into the backseat of Steve's car. As he pulled out of the driveway, Max looked back to the house and saw Billy watching the retreating car through the parted blinds of his bedroom window.  
  
It took Max a moment to realize that she and Steve weren't alone in the car. Beside her was Will, who Max didn't know that much, but he smiled quietly at her and kept a respectful distance from her. In the passenger seat sat Robin, someone who Max also didn't necessarily know, but she worked with Steve at the ice-cream shop, and Max liked her. Steve looked at her in the rearview mirror. "We cool Max?"  
  
"Yeah," Max relaxed once her house was no longer in sight and buckled in her seatbelt. "Neil's home, so I don't think Billy can leave without a reason. We should be good."  
  
Satisfied, Steve nodded and turned back to the road.  
  
The others were patiently waiting for them when they arrived, their D&D game already set up on the table, dice and manuals and stationary spread out in preparation. But instead of at the table, they were lying on their stomachs on the floor, playing a board game. Hopper was in the kitchen drinking from a mug that probably wasn't just coffee.   
  
Everyone looked up when they came in and, relieved that they weren't accompanied by any uninvited guests, Hopper immediately called a team meeting.   
  
"We need to figure out what we're going to do with Billy," he began without preamble. "Now that he knows about El."  
  
"I mean," Steve waved his hand. "How do you know that he saw what happened? How does he know that El did it?"  
  
Max sighed and ran her hands through her hair. "Because he was asking questions about her on the way home last night. He knows she's the one who broke his wrist."  
  
"Can we just..." Dustin began, seemingly already regretting his train of thought. "Ask him not to tell anyone?"  
  
Everyone looked at him like he was crazy, but Steve put one hand on his head and the other squeezed his shoulder. "Normally that would work, but you know Billy. He would never listen to reason, especially not from any of us."  
  
"Who is he going to tell?" Robin said. "As far as I know, he hasn't got any friends. Nobody can stand him."  
  
Hopper nodded slowly. "And it's not as if he can tell his family. Max already knows, Susan doesn't seem too interested and, no offence Max, but I've seen Neil around town. He doesn't seem like he'd believe a word that Billy said to him."  
  
Abruptly, Max looked down. "No," she said quietly and Hopper looked at her strangely. "He wouldn't."  
  
They were quietly contemplative as they tried to figure out what to do about the situation, but El broke the silence with her overly determined voice. "Talk to him."  
  
It was Dustin this time who looked at her with apprehension. "Uh, I thought that we'd already decided that we weren't going to talk to him?"  
  
"Who do you want to nominate for that suicide mission?" Lucas said, slightly mocking, and Mike kicked him in the ankle.  
  
El turned to him with an equally annoyed look as the ones his friends were giving him. "Me," she said simply. Steve choked on his spit. Hopper looked like he was about to pass out. "I can talk to him."  
  
"Right," Hopper choked out, trying desperately to manage the situation. He knew what that look on her face meant, and knew it wasn't anything good. "I'm not sure that's going to work out the way you think it will."  
  
Frustrated, El stomped her foot on the ground and grumbled under her breath. "I can talk to him. I can."  
  
Hopper looked like he was going to argue again, which would only lead to disaster, but Robin, understanding that El was getting worked up, rushed between her and Hopper, knelt down and gently gripped her arms. "El," she said softly and the younger girl looked down at her with quietly hopeful eyes. "Why do you think you'll be able to talk with Billy?"  
  
They were silent as they all waited for El's reply and watched as she struggled to come up with the right words. "Because we are... the same." At everyone's confused look, she tried to elaborate. "Papa hurt us. I saw it... his memories. Angry. Sad. Scared. We are the same."  
  
Expectantly, Hopper still did not look convinced, but thankfully, Steve stepped forward. "Right, ok," he took a deep breath. "Hypothetically, how would you be getting close enough to Billy to have this conversation?"  
  
El sent Max a sly, sideways look, and though Max didn't know what it meant, she knew that it was going to be fun. "Sleepover."  
  
"Alright," Hopper finally interrupted. "I don't know what you're planning, but I know I don't like it."  
  
Max suddenly realized what El was talking about. "If El sleeps at my house tonight, it'll give her a reason to get close to Billy. A reason that wouldn't be suspicious."  
  
"And if he's told your parents about her already?" Robin said.  
  
Shoving her hands in her pockets, Max shook her head. "I doubt it. Like you already said, they wouldn't believe him, even if it was _his_ wrist she broke, they'd just think he got into a fight or fell over or something."  
  
Again, Hopper gave her a strange, unreadable look, and Mike saved her from his questioning by getting very excited. "Wait, El, do you have some secret special superpower where you can like, make people forget things?" The rest of the kids all turned to her, excited, but El made a face at him.  
  
El shook her head. "No. Don't be stupid."  
  
Will looked very confused. "What are you going to do then?"  
  
"Talk to him."  
  
"You honestly think you're going to get through his big head?" Hopper demanded, hands on his hips. "And what if he hurts you before you get the chance?"  
  
"He won't get the chance," El sounded so sure of herself that it was hard to argue. "I won't let him."  
  
Steve placed a hand on Hopper's shoulder and the older man fell silent. "This might work. We should give her a chance."  
  
With everyone apparently in agreement, Hopper reluctantly, Steve drove El and Max back home with a packed overnight bag, wished them luck, and drove back to the cabin.   
  
Max took a deep, steadying breath before she placed her hand on the handle and El squeezed her shoulder in comforting solidarity.   
  
Pushing the door open, they were met with the bright warmth of the living room and the loud sounds that Max had associated with her new home. Her mother was in the kitchen, Neil leaning over the counter with a beer held loosely in his hand and watching her mother, Billy on the couch with one arm slung over the back. Both adults looked up when she walked in, but Billy didn't so much as flinch. "How was your game, hun?" Her mother smiled as Max closed the door behind her.  
  
"It uh, it was great." Max smiled shakily. She gulped. "I hope you don't mind, but I invited my friend to sleep over tonight, if that's alright. This is El."  
  
El peeked out from behind Max's shoulder. "Hello." She didn't sound afraid, just a little nervous.   
  
Neil looked like he was about to refuse, but Max's mother beat him to it and smiled. "Of course. It's lovely to meet you, El. Dinner is at 7."  
  
Billy had turned around to look at them now, and his eyes widened at the sight of the little girl he had watched snap another man's wrist with a tilt of her head and a dirty look standing in his living room. El met his gaze and looked him up and down, tilting her head.  
  
Realizing how weird the sight must have looked, Max grabbed El's hand and pulled her away towards her bedroom.   
  
Later that night, even the household was asleep and Max was snoring lightly beside her, El peeled away the covers and made her way down the hall towards Billy's bedroom. There was faint light spilling out from under the door, so El opened it and walked in.  
  
Billy was looking out the window with a wistful, thoughtful look on his face, and he snapped his head around to look at her and his expression soured. "What the hell do you think you're doing? Get the fuck out of here."  
  
Instead of listening, El walked further into the room. "What were you... thinking about?"  
  
"None of your god damn business," Billy seethed. "Get out."  
  
"I need to talk to you."  
  
Realizing that there was no getting rid of her, Billy stared daggers into her instead and clenched his hands into fists. "Then what? Talk and get the fuck out."  
  
Slowly, El lowered herself to the floor, her legs folded under her, her hands in her lap. "You saw. You saw what I did to that man. They said that I should... should make sure that you... understand. Make sure that you're not afraid. Of me."  
  
"Well," Billy snapped, "If that's all you wanted to say then I guess it's time for you to _leave_ -"  
  
"We are the same," El cut him off, her voice strong. "Papa hurt us. He treats us like garbage. Mama left us all alone. We are broken and angry and scared and... similar." El looked up at Billy and met his eyes, which were wide and frightened. "I saw your memories. I was there, on the beach. I watched him yell, and hurt, and tease. I watched her leave you... with him. I watched you hurt that boy... just because you could. I watched the Mind Flayer... get you. Take you."  
  
Billy was looking at her now in a completely different way and El was glad that there was no more hostility in his eyes.   
  
He remembered the cold, suffocating void, the large expanse of nothingness and the little girl in the yellow shirt and her gentle touch, softer than Billy had experienced in a very long time, her company a blessing after being alone for so long. Then she was gone, falling backwards and sinking through the emptiness, leaving Billy alone again at his mercy.   
  
"You saw me," El said again, softly. "You know now what's going on. You have questions. Ask."  
  
Unfortunately, Billy did have questions, and he hated that he did. "What do... what can you do?"  
  
"What can I do?"  
  
"I mean, it's obvious that you can do something," Billy said, a little short, already regretting it. "Do you only use your freaky mind powers to hurt people or can you do something else?"  
  
El looked at him thoughtfully for a moment before turning to his stereo. She tilted her head and slowly the volume began to get louder. "I can do that. I can be soft," she said before turning to the other side of the room. She raised her hand, fingers splayed, and a can of beer exploded, the liquid spraying everywhere. "or I can hurt." She looked to Billy, head tilted again, but just in consideration. A dribble of blood ran down her nose. "Do you remember? Anything? It was... bad. We both did... bad, to each other."  
  
Honestly, Billy didn't, not really. In the void, it was like looking through a tiny cracked window, the image blurry and distorted. But he did remember numb pain, as if he was feeling it through a filter, his body tense and tossed around, a sharp pain at the back of his neck. But vividly he remembered the heat, blinding heat, sobbing into silence and apologising for something he didn't understand, Max's face through the small, foggy window. "Not really," he admitted. He hated how small his voice sounded "I know I did bad things. I know I hurt people. Like you and like... like Max. I'm sorry."  
  
Sympathetic, El reached out and gently rested her hand on his knee, somewhat surprised that he didn't jerk away, but the muscles did tense slightly. "Wasn't you." She said and he looked away. "It was him. He made you do it. You had... no control. None of us blames you. Especially not... especially not Max." Billy's sigh through his nose was shaky. "She loves you, you know. She just wants... love in return. And maybe you love her, but don't want to show it. But sometimes... she needs to know it."  
  
Billy blinked unwanted tears from his eyes. "What do you want from me? Why are you doing this?"  
  
"Doing what?"  
  
"Being _nice_ ," Billy hissed, desperate. "After everything I've done to you and Max and your friends, why are you telling me this? What are you trying to do?"  
  
El sat in silence for a moment as she tried to find the words. "Because you know," she said eventually. "And because you know, you can help. We need... lots of help. More friends the better. More friends help. More friends protect. Protect each other. I want… to be your friend, because we both need all the friends we can get.”

There was a tense silence between them for a few long moments where Billy could feel himself shaking an El watched him with sympathetic eyes, one hand on his knee her only connection to him. It was obvious that he was hurting and struggling with the knowledge that she had given him, so El slowly stood up and made her way towards the door. Billy didn’t even look at her.

Pausing halfway out the door, El turned around to smile sadly at Billy. “She would be proud of you. Your mother,” Billy glanced up and something unidentifiable flashed across his face. “She would. And Max… she would too. They both… they both love you. Even if you don’t believe it.”

And then she was gone, padding down the darkened hallway back to Max’s bedroom and leaving Billy to think alone in silence.

The next morning, Billy didn’t leave his room and join them for breakfast, which nobody but El thought was odd, and not long later, she was grabbing her things and Max was leading her to the skate park where Hopper had insisted on picking them up personally so he could make sure that El was alright and also so it didn’t look weird for the police Chief to arrive at the Hargrove’s home unannounced.

It was only when Max had done her fourth rotation of the rinks and El had watched her with interest that Max paused beside her, aghast. “Oh fuck! You were supposed to speak to Billy! I completely forgot!”

“It’s ok,” El said. “I did. Last night. While you were asleep.”

Max looked at her strangely. “And… how did that go?”

Honestly, El wasn’t quite sure how it went. She didn’t get much input from Billy except for looking heartbroken and asking questions that El couldn’t understand. Why was she being nice? Why did she care? What strange questions. She shrugged. “Wait and see.”

When Hopper arrived in his cruiser with the siren on and the lights blaring, all the other kids freaked out and ducked for cover, but El walked straight towards it with a smile on her face, Max following closely behind. It was only when they had their seatbelts on securely and they began to pull away from the skate park that Hopper looked at them through the rear-view mirror. “So… how was your night?”

“Good,” El answered, smiling at him, and under his bushy moustache, Hopper smiled back. “We had… a very good time.”

“And… this thing with Billy… it’s been all sorted out now?”

“Think so. For now,” El shrugged. “Wait and see.”

It was more than a week later until any of them thought of Billy again, and it was when Max, El and Will were backed into a corner with a slavering demi-dog prowling towards them, Max pretty much holding an exhausted El upright as they backed up towards the dead-end wall, Will chirping desperately into his radio to no reply, and El screaming back at the demo-dog in an attempt to scare it away. Instead of deterring it, however, El just seemed to anger it more.

“We’re not going to get out of this one, are we?” Will said with a shake to his voice, giving up with his radio and lowering it down to his side.

Max sniffled as her back hit the wall of the cabin. “I don’t think so.”

Instead of answering, El thrust her hand out and the demo-dog went flying into a tree across the road, and with a yelp, it struck it with a sickening crunch, but it stood back up and continued its slow approach towards them once again. El collapsed against Max, blood dribbling down her chin. “I’m sorry,” she sobbed. “I’m sorry.”

Dropping the radio on the ground, Will leant his head against the back of the cabin, the inside dark and deserted, devoid of any help. “I never even got to say goodbye to mum and Johnathan or the others.” He whispered.

El reached over and wrapped her arms around him, an embrace he happily reciprocated. “Hopper,” she sobbed. “Mike.”

As she watched the demo-dog crouch down, preparing to pounce, Max closed her eyes and wrapped her arms around herself, leaning against El’s side. “Billy,” she whimpered.

But then, it was as if the whole world stilled. Max opened her eyes and saw the demo-dog with its face in the air, searching down the road. After a moment, Max understood why when she heard the familiar, steady rumble of Billy’s Camaro roaring down the street towards them. She felt like screaming in pure joy but before she even had the chance to draw breath into her lungs, twin balls of blinding light shone through the trees and suddenly the very familiar car drove straight into the demo-dog and its blood skidded across the windscreen.

The passenger door flew open and Billy was looking at them from the driver’s seat. “What the fuck are you waiting for?” he shouted. “Get your asses in the car!”

Sprinting, the trio of children all squished themselves into the tiny passenger seat as Billy drove away, running over the demo-dog again and spraying blood against the hood. “Billy!” Max gasped. “What are you doing here? How did you know how to find us?”

Billy swerved to avoid another demo-dog that the others hadn’t seen. “I came to talk to the crazy girl,” he said and El beamed. “I thought I’d find you here, I just didn’t think I’d find you about to die by a _terrifying devil mutt_.” He made no comment of all the blood on his seats.

“Demo-dog,” Will murmured, trying his best to look out the back windshield. “It’s called a demo-dog.”

El reached out and placed a hand on Billy’s wrist and he looked down at her, confused. “All the friends we can get,” she said with a big grin on her face. “Thank you.”

Instead of answering, Billy tightened his fingers on the steering wheel. “Where to?”

“Steve’s house,” Max said after a moment of thinking. “It’s where we’d all go if the cabin was compromised. And I think this classifies as compromised.”

“Are you fucking- Harrington’s house? You’ve got to be- fine, alright, Hair’s house, whatever.”

Nobody had really wanted to trust Billy at first when he had driven up Steve’s driveway and a bunch of scared, bleeding kids piled out of his passenger seat, but Max had convinced them by putting her entire body in the way of Billy’s when Steve went to push him out the door and El grabbed Hopper’s arm when he reached for his gun by saying sternly, “He said he would help us,” she told him, even though that wasn’t technically what Billy had said. “Friends don’t lie.”

Later, when everyone had calmed down and Johnathan was hugging his scared brother to his chest and Hopper and Mike had finally let El out of their death-grip of a hug, El made her way out to the backyard to where Billy was smoking a cigarette by the pool. “Hopper has those,” she said in way of greeting and Billy turned, his fingers reaching for it. “They stink.”

“Well, looks like me and your pops have more in common then he may think,” Billy said, dropping it to ground and stomping it out with his heel. “What do you want?”

“Why are you here?” El asked without preamble. “Why did you stay? You could have dropped us off… and left. But you’re still here. Why?”

Billy paused for a long while before seemingly coming to a decision, his fingers reaching up to fiddle with his necklace, a figure that El couldn’t identify embossed on it. “I’ve been a real prick, I know that,” Billy said slowly. “I’ve hurt people and done some shitty things. And I don’t give a fuck about any of that. But now… now that I’ve seen what some of the crazy crap you kids get up to when nobody is looking, I think I’ve made up my mind.”

“What did you… decide?”

When Billy turned to her, there was an intensity in his eyes that El hadn’t expected but was for some reason very proud of. “That _nobody_ hurts my sister. Especially if I have any say in it. And if that includes interdimensional demon-dogs, then so be it.”

El grinned. “Welcome to the family.”

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, Hopper does suspect that something is going on with Neil and Billy, which is why he keeps giving Max all those looks when she talks about it. I thought I was going to explain it, but I didn't. Oops.


End file.
